The Lens was the only publication in Louisiana to win a Headliner Award for work published in 2014.

The awards are chosen by the Press Club of Atlantic City, which considers work submitted from across the country. The first awards were given in 1934, and the club says the program is one of the oldest and largest annual contests “recognizing journalistic merit in the communications industry.”

Also placing in the same category were the Medill Watchdog team from Northwestern University outside of Chicago, which earned second place; and ProPublica, which also took third place.

The Lens and ProPublica are both nonprofit newsrooms, a relatively new category of journalism nationwide.

Reporting for The Lens was led by Bob Marshall, a two-time Pulitizer-Prize winning journalist who has covered the outdoors and environmental issues in Louisiana for more than 30 years. Al Shaw and Brian Jacobs of ProPublica worked with historical and satellite images to create the stunning presentation that lets our audience see in great detail the land that has been lost.

Steve Beatty is the publisher and chief executive officer of The Lens. He worked as an editor for The Times-Picayune for 15 years, leaving New Orleans just before Katrina to take a position as an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and quickly rising through the ranks to be an editor of the newspaper’s watchdog investigative team. He returned to New Orleans in May of 2009. He can be reached at (504) 655-2375.

Congratulations – First Place Honors – National Headliner Awards! Also, I would love to see if somebody could figure a way (besides movies) to show the public what WE AMERICANS have lost in some other areas as well. Environmental and land is great and you all did a fantastic job. And no, I have not had a cocktail yet. It is still early. But it is April 15th and I have suffered some major losses here, but a satellite (image) won’t help my shrinking bank account. 04/15/2015 7:39 PM